Today’s Headlines: California conservatives are confident in their new playbook

Hello, it’s Tuesday, Nov. 29, and here are the stories you shouldn’t miss today:

TOP STORIES

California conservatives are hopeful despite their school board losses

For conservatives running for school boards in California, any dream of a “red wave� proved to be a dud as Republican candidates, including a member of an extremist right-wing group, lost in most races across the state.

But even some unsuccessful campaigns garnered enough votes to feed into an already acute sense of political polarization that was once missing from local school board races. And conservative groups feel they’ve found a playbook for winning more.

Groups such as the American Council and Moms for Liberty recruited and endorsed dozens of candidates across the state and helped bankroll wins. The council, which aims to recruit political candidates with a “biblical worldview,� is already prepping for the next election and views California’s nearly 1,000 school boards as one way into political power in a place where a Republican has not won a race statewide in 16 years.

Sign up for our California Politics newsletter to get the best of The Times’ state politics reporting and the latest action in Sacramento.

Amid canceled classes and ungraded assignments, UC is in a panic

The nation’s largest collective strike of teaching assistants, tutors, graduate student researchers and postdoctoral scholars entered its third week — and is triggering growing tensions, anxiety and uncertainty over how to handle final papers, projects and exams as classes end this week at some campuses.

The workers, represented by four United Auto Workers bargaining units, lead discussion sessions, run labs, grade assignments, administer exams, conduct research and perform other critical roles that give the University of California its national reputation for excellence.

The union is demanding significant pay increases to help afford housing in the high-cost areas where UC campuses are located, along with more support for child care, healthcare, transportation and international students. UC’s offers don’t come close to meeting those demands, but it says they are “fair, reasonable, and responsive to the union’s priorities.�

Riverside’s Black Friday horror

A newly minted law enforcement officer from Virginia drove cross-country to a Riverside cul-de-sac, where police say he parked a few houses down from the home of a 15-year-old girl he met online by “catfishing� her.

Police say Austin Lee Edwards, 28, killed the teen’s grandfather, grandmother and mother before leaving with her in his vehicle. A Riverside police spokesperson called it a “very disturbing crime scene� and said the cause and manner of deaths were still under investigation.

California law enforcement officers eventually spotted Edwards’ vehicle hours later and almost 200 miles from the teen’s home. He refused to surrender and eventually drove off the road. San Bernardino deputies were able to rescue the girl inside the car. Edwards was killed as he exited his vehicle, after pointing a gun at a Sheriff’s Department helicopter, deputies said.

COVID-19 protests in China hit Hong Kong

Students in Hong Kong chanted “oppose dictatorship� in a protest of China’s COVID-19 rules after demonstrators on the mainland issued an unprecedented call for President Xi Jinping to resign in the biggest show of opposition to the ruling Communist Party in decades.

Rallies against China’s unusually strict antivirus measures spread to several cities over the weekend, and authorities eased some regulations, apparently to try to quell that public anger. But the government showed no sign of backing down on its larger coronavirus strategy, and analysts expect authorities to quickly silence the dissent.

Stay up to date on variant developments, case counts and vaccine news with Coronavirus Today.

Disney CEO Iger said he would not sell the company to Apple

Bob Iger, the Walt Disney Co.’s returning chief executive, threw cold water on the idea of selling the company to Apple — or acquiring other major companies — during his highly anticipated town hall for employees, according to attendees who were not authorized to comment.

During a Q&A session with “ABC7 Eyewitness News� co-anchor Leslie Sykes, Iger also stressed the need to make Disney+ profitable and signaled that cost-management measures, including a hiring freeze and travel restrictions, would remain in place — even though they were started by his ousted predecessor, Bob Chapek.

The meeting came just over a week after Disney’s board suddenly fired Chapek and replaced him with Iger, who previously served as CEO for 15 years.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

30 years of masa dreams: Silvia Rendon, owner of Casa de Silvia in Indio, shows off Mexican dishes including her award-winning tamales. For 30 years, the Indio International Tamale Festival has allowed entrepreneurs like Rendon the chance to showcase their food. The Times’ Gustavo Arellano visited three to hear their stories.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

CALIFORNIA

RSV is straining children’s hospitals across California. Nationally, hospitalization rates related to RSV — or respiratory syncytial virus — are exceptionally high, according to Dr. Theodore Ruel, chief of UC San Francisco’s pediatric infectious diseases and global health division. The per capita RSV hospitalization rate this month was the highest since the 2018-19 cold and flu season, Ruel said.

Two jurors in the Danny Masterson rape trial were dismissed due to COVID, setting the stage for a complete restart in deliberations. Masterson’s trial, which started in mid-October, featured harrowing testimony from women who accused the actor and Scientologist of violently sexually assaulting them at his Hollywood Hills home between 2001 and 2003.

Cool temperatures in Southern California could give way to a “potent storm� by the weekend. Los Angeles County’s health department advised residents to dress in warm layers, bring pets indoors and check on family members, friends and neighbors with limited mobility and limited access to heat. People should not use stoves, barbecues or ovens to heat their homes due to the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.

NATION-WORLD

The niece of Iran’s supreme leader urged the world to cut ties with Tehran over the crackdown on protesters. In a video posted online by her France-based brother, Farideh Moradkhani urged “conscientious people of the world� to support Iranian protesters. The video was shared online this week after Moradkhani’s reported arrest, according to U.S.-based rights monitor HRANA.

The Buffalo supermarket gunman pleaded guilty in the racist attack that killed 10. The 19-year-old white gunman who targeted a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood in New York pleaded guilty to murder and hate-motivated terrorism charges, guaranteeing that he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

An order to boil water was issued for more than 2 million people in Houston. A power outage at a purification plant caused water pressure to drop, and the mayor of the nation’s fourth-largest city ordered a full review of the system. The notice told customers to boil water before it’s used for cooking, bathing or drinking.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

Metallica debuted “Lux Æterna� from the “72 Seasons� album, along with a massive world tour. The heavy-metal band released its first new track in six years — making good on drummer Lars Ulrich’s promise not to make fans wait another eight years to hear new music.

For nonbinary actor Emma Corrin, gendered awards categories make things “difficult.� Their performance as Diana, Princess of Wales, in Netflix’s “The Crown� garnered a host of award nominations and wins all in female categories. Corrin said they “hope for a future� with gender-free awards and also called for more nonbinary, queer and trans people to have roles on screen.

Pete Davidson and Emily Ratajkowski fueled romance rumors by attending a game together. They have neither confirmed nor denied the romance rumors. But the pair further stoked the relationship speculation by sitting courtside together at an NBA game between the Memphis Grizzlies and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

BUSINESS

Apple will probably have a shortfall of 6 million iPhone Pros because of tumult at a China plant. Turmoil at Apple’s key manufacturing hub of Zhengzhou is likely to result in the production shortfall this year, according to a person familiar with assembly operations. The shares slumped in early U.S. trading.

Mark Burnett, MGM’s TV chief, has exited amid the Amazon reorganization. In recent years, he served as chairman of MGM’s worldwide television group, overseeing a slate of original programs including “The Voice,� “Survivor,� “Shark Tank� and “The Handsmaid’s Tale.� The move came eight months after Amazon purchased MGM for $8.5 billion.

OPINION

Latino support for Karen Bass shows voters rejecting the Black-brown strife. The city with the largest Latinx population in the U.S. elected Bass, who is Black, as its first female mayor at a time of high-profile Black-brown tension in the halls of power. Bass, whose family is Black and Latinx, never posed as a Latina. But many Latinos rightly saw her as a truer ally than Rick Caruso, writes Times columnist Jean Guerrero.

Measure ULA is the best gift Bass could get as mayor. The passage of Measure ULA will provide hundreds of millions of dollars annually to build affordable housing and prevent homelessness. Advocates for the measure estimate it could help fund 26,000 units of housing over a decade and, annually, provide rental assistance to thousands.

SPORTS

For Iran’s coach Carlos Queiroz, playing against the U.S. will have a special meaning. Queiroz once spent a year trying to fix U.S. soccer. On Monday, as coach of the Iranian national team, he’s going to try to beat the Americans.

Charisma Osborne hopes to lead UCLA women’s basketball to a championship season. One year after the Bruins missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2015, the senior guard has started her revenge tour averaging 20.1 points and 7.1 rebounds in leading No. 20 UCLA to its best start in three years.

The Dodgers met with Cy Young winner Justin Verlander in the pursuit of rotation help. With Walker Buehler likely to miss all of next year following Tommy John surgery, the starting rotation remains one of the Dodgers’ top priorities this winter.

ONLY IN L.A.

A trivia team celebrates an early-round victory in a pub-quiz contest at Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles is probably the best place to have a brainpan crammed with trivial knowledge. In their off hours, The Times’ Adam Tschorn and some of his colleagues hit the local pub-quiz circuit to see if they could leverage frontal lobes filled with folderol into free drinks, bar swag and bragging rights.

The venues and people are as random and fun as the questions themselves. On any given weeknight, Adam writes, you can find yourself competing in a giant barrel (Idle Hour) in North Hollywood, a mock-up of a Tatooine bar (Scum and Villainy Cantina) in Hollywood or a jackalope-themed German restaurant (Rasselbock) in Mar Vista.

Likewise, your competition could turn out to be some totally unknown rock stars of the pub-quiz world. With that in mind, here’s a look at some of the best pub-quiz places they played at over the last three months.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Mid-November 1937: The landslide that grabbed nationwide attention started with a crack.

(Los Angeles Times)

Eighty-five years ago this week, on Nov. 27, 1937, an Elysian Park landslide reached a crisis point, The Times reported, as a blocklong portion of boulders and debris crashed onto Riverside Drive. Amazingly, no one was injured.

The landslide had been happening in slow motion over the course of several weeks. “Amid a cacophony of grating, rumbling sounds from the depths of Mother Earth, Elysian Park’s moving mountain continued its relentless descent on Riverside Drive and the Los Angeles River bed yesterday,� The Times reported; the following day the paper said it “seemed to have settled down.�

The slow-moving spectacle was reported widely and, for a time, was a huge draw for sightseers, according to Times reporting. Police estimated 10,000 people visited an hour — they “thronged all vantage points along the railroad yards and San Fernando Road. … Throughout the day airplanes and the Goodyear blimp crisscrossed the sky over the slide to provide sight-seers with a full view of the terrain.� Vendors sold peanuts, popcorn and soda — even “cheap field glasses (‘Brings the slide right before your eyes!’)� The crowd included “four youths who said they had hopped freights from New York, attracted by headlines in eastern papers and by sensational radio broadcasts.�

Nov. 27, 1937: An aerial view of the landslide covering Riverside Drive.

(Los Angeles Times)

Times staff writer Amy Hubbard contributed to this report.

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